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2006.08.31

Skin was approaching better and then relapsed. Given the timing (and several other data points), I can identify three things that are likely culprits for what makes it flare: caffeine, something about the environment / stress level at work, working at the computer while sitting upright. If only I'd been scientific enough to not muddy my variables.

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2006.08.30

Didn't say anything yesterday as it was, with one exception, pretty lousy. I did level at work, which was cool (cue FFVI fight victory theme), but the rest... ugh. I worked from home again today, which really just made everything better.

I did something rare today: I went to McDonalds (for something other than their crack addict breakfast). Not just that, but I went to a very particular McDonalds, the McDonalds of my childhood. I've been in there a handful of times since I was ten or so; every time, it's a little surreal. There is where Bryce and I squirted ketchup all over the floor, there is where we always tried to sit, there is where I nearly knocked myself out on the guardrail... I had a Quarter Pounder. It tasted like being eight.

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2006.08.28

Worked at home today, and hoping to do more of that this week. My mobility is enough impaired that any moment that I can avoid moving more than absolutely necessary is a good one. Bleh.

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2006.08.27

A reasonably decent weekend. I threw a tantrum late Friday night, which certainly wasn't very ladylike but just as certainly did make me feel better. Not enough better to not spend much of the weekend nearly as an invalid, as I'm having trouble with the walking, but better nonetheless.

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2006.08.25

Looking at my skin makes me feel nauseous.

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2006.08.24

I broke my skin today. I don't mean that I broke the surface; that's been going on for weeks. No... what I've done is so fundamentally damage a few patches above to the insides of my knees that they're unable to retain moisture and have been seeping since this morning.

I sat on my couch tonight with a cool washcloth pressed to my leg, and I cried. I sobbed, while my cats observed curiously and blood from a recent gouge dripped down my shin. I wept, as my skin prickled and itched from the soles of my feet all the way up my back, over my right shoulder, down across my right breast and both arms. And then I sniffled, spread a bit of moisturizer on my arms (the only bits not scraped totally raw, which makes putting anything on intensely painful), and went out to get the heavier-than-me yard waste container down to the street. Because really, there's absolutely nothing else I can do.

Excellent. Number of spiders I have witnessed inside the house: 3. Number of spiders that Micah has murderlized and eaten: 2. I'll have him work on #3 (web on the living room window) when there's more light for him to see it by. Good kitty.

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2006.08.23

Moved! Even mostly unpacked! The monster trio are learning to hunt spiders! Yay!

I'm exhausted.

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2006.08.20

Ugh. I stink like packing in hot weather in a house that doesn't get quite enough ventilation (I'm trading a place that's slightly too warm in the summer for a place that will be slightly too cool in the winter; I think I'm making a good deal that way). Almost all that I'm taking is boxed up, and that that isn't is at least generally planned for. I am so very, very, very glad that I'm not going to be the one carrying my heavy-ass shit down the three flights of stairs tomorrow.

Several hours later I am totally overwhelmed, but essentially done with as much packing as I'm going to do tonight. Everything else is either going to be packed tomorrow morning (e.g., TV/stereo) or will stay here past The Moving tomorrow. I showed my mother my place today; she's just as in love with it as I am. We did mismeasure something, which led me to sadly thinking for much of the day that I'd not be able to get my dresser and my bed in the room I want as my bedroom, but Jeff and I swung by later and remeasured with happier results. It still may not fit, but I'll at least not be upset about it tonight. Now! To loathe and chill and hopefully get to sleep at a reasonable time, seeing as movers are supposed to show up at the absurd hour of 9 am. Really, I never!

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2006.08.19

More boxes packed today, and a few things brought over. I have to be there tomorrow for cable hookup, but I think much of the rest of the day will be packing. At least it's not like I have to be out at any particular time... but getting it all over with will be a relief.

I walked around my place today in a little bit of awe. A lovely little house and it's mine! Or at least rented to me. My landlords left flowers on the mantle and an adorable kitty card welcoming me (back) to the neighborhood. We explored another nice pub (that makes three ones I like within easy striking distance) that I'd noticed hidden under Third Place Books a couple weeks ago; we had delicious cheap food, good beer, and a Scrabble game. Life will be good once I finish moving.

And it'll be even better once it's fall and my damn eczema dies down. It's so bad this year that my legs from mid-thigh to toes are aching, itchy, and raw. It feels like a bad sunburn, which I suppose is apt seeing as sunburns are the only other times I've had such wide swaths of my skin so badly damaged: I look like I fell off a skateboard and skidded on pavement while wearing shorts. Not happy-making.

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2006.08.17

I engaged movers for Monday morning and packed four boxes today. Admittedly, they were the cheap and easy boxes (novels are easy to pack), but it's good to have actually started. This weekend will be a big pack-a-thon. Yay.

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2006.08.15

So! I am moving, hopefully this weekend, as that's when I start paying rent. I want to hire movers this time around, because I'm tired of shlepping my shit. I need suggestions on movers. And to pack.

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2006.08.13

Days that do not involve 3 hour drives, 3 hour waits, 4 hour flights, and then 1 hour of dinking around when we should be getting somewhere, all with my family, are much preferable to those that do. Ugh. And I have a meeting tomorrow, so I can't get away with working from home. Ugh.

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2006.08.12

The wedding was blessedly short and the reception easy to leave quickly. I really can't say much more about that without becoming odiously rude, so I won't. The rest of the day was quite fine: we got up to have the proprietors' ridiculously delicious breakfast, I read and napped through the morning, and Jenya, Bryce and I escaped the family and went into Shreveport (across the border into Louisiana) for the evening. We were hoping to find a place to have some barbeque (I've still had none since I got here, woe) and ended up finding mediocre Southern food instead, but we also were pleasantly surprised by the lovely mural-coated downtown area and entertained by the fact that all the casinos in the casino district are actually steamboats. Most of them seemed to be steamboats raised up in tanks above the river, but steamboats nonetheless; apparently having the casino on a boat allows it to have table games rather than just slots, or so we were informed by the nice security guard the Fool chatted up at the El Dorado.

Our plane home is at 9 pm tomorrow evening, which means we'll leave here around 3 pm. I'm agitating for us to leave earlier; I have no hopes for the traffic or the state of the airport. I'm mentally prepping for us to miss our flight, as such pessimism befits my mood.

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2006.08.11

Much of today was spent reading in the shade and the breeze of the B&B's garden. Despite the fact that I got munched on by not a few mosquitos, that part of the day was grand. Rest of the day, not so much. When it comes right down to it, I just don't know these people. They may as well be Martians as my blood relatives. Hell, I could probably talk to Martians easier. My female cousins are the same conversational blank wall that I remember, while my uncle and my aunt are polite but seem so utterly bemused by the Seattle contingent that conversation inevitably stutters out after a few minutes. The extended family I've met so far just gets worse. My cousin Wesley is here, which is nice, but in truth I know him almost less well than I do his family, not to mention the fact that it's his sister getting married and his family he's home visiting, so his impetus to chat with the weird Seattle cousins is understandably low. I'm hoping against hope that there's alcohol at the wedding tomorrow and that if so I'll be able to get over the hangup about drinking around my parents. I'm not sure how I'll make it through the day without bursting into stressed-out tears otherwise.

Unexpectedly, it was Jenya and Bryce today who upset me the most. They were speaking jokingly and fondly about getting married, about how Bryce claims he won't marry her until she has a four year degree ("An AA doesn't count, missy!"), about how their wedding will be a dry one (the Fool: "It'll be like Prohibition!"), about how they'd be tempted to elope (Jenya: "My mother is so down with that; she offered us money to get to Vegas."). I realized two things with a jolt that's distressed me all day: 1) it's entirely likely that my little brother will get married before I do, and 2) it's entirely likely that I'll never get married at all.

I never fully thought it out before, but I'm completely terrified of marriage. I'm terrified that I'd turn into my parents, full of passive-aggressive, codependent, deeply unhappy dysfunctionality. Beyond that, I never fully thought it out before, but I'm completely convinced that no one can ever love me enough to actually want to marry me (I have enough problems with trusting that someone can really love me at all in the first place, even a little). The only situation in which I can imagine someone proposing to me is out of a sense of bored inevitability ("Well, we've been together long enough, and get along okay, might as well, I suppose. Whatever."). I fear that my internal conviction is such that it really doesn't matter what the truth is; I'll always find a way to distort reality to be consistent with my belief.

I've been terrified for years to talk about marriage with anyone I've dated. Talking about it would only be an opportunity for the guy to be noncommital, shy away, confirm every fear about my loveability and acceptability that rattles around my stupid fucked up head. To watch Bryce and Jenya's affectionate banter about it was both reassuring (I was reminded anew how very very glad I am that my dear Fool is such a happier person than me) and like a knife twisting in my stomach. An envious knife coated in lemon juice and salt.

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2006.08.10

Despite all terrorist attempts to the contrary, we made it to Texas and only an hour behind schedule. Admittedly, that put us, after 2.5 hours in line, 1 hour of delay at the concourse, 4 hours in flight, and 2.5 hours of driving out to Jefferson, arriving at about 2:30 am local time, but the (fantabulously fruity) proprietor of the B&B Mom's got us at didn't seem to mind a whit. My room is darling in a way that I'm not girly enough to appreciate (I have a little velvet footstool to get up on the bed!) but blessedly AC'd six ways from Sunday. There's also a downright creepy framed photograph of a very depressed looking Depression-era family glaring out at the room, which appeals to my sense of macabre.

Mama and I had a great time on the threeish hour drive from Dallas listening to music on my iPod (through the graces of my Christmas gift to Bryce of a jack splitter / amplifier) and talking about each song. She and I bond over music as we do over no other interest; after the roller coaster of her mental health the last year, it's reassuring that we still do.

This is the first time my entire family has been on a trip together, other than to go to Nana's funeral, since we went to Australia in 1997.

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2006.08.09

Two things to say. 1) I am signing a lease on a perfectly lovely little house in Wedgwood on Monday, and getting keys and moving next weekend. YAY! 2) I'm waiting until next week because I'm going to Texas Thursday-Sunday at my mother's behest. BOO!

Hopefully I'll emerge alive from the experience.

Think

2006.08.07

To keep with the kitty news theme, Aggie delighted me to no end tonight by tearing across several yards of parking lot and directly up six feet of tree after some birds. "Who's my fierce hunter kitty," I coo to her, while the rest of me stares at myself in disbelief and says, "Crazy cat lady. Inavoidable."

In other news, the script that's worked for a good two years to update tht.rss suddenly doesn't work as of this weekend. What the hell? I presume to blame whatever update it was that Apple pushed at me. Grrr.

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2006.08.05

Jasper didn't get stuck in a garage last night, but I'm concerned about him nonetheless. He's had a pair of matching sores on the outer corners of his eyes for weeks now. Eyedrops didn't help and now he gets to be on a course of steroids. It certainly doesn't seem to bother him none, but I worry about long-term damage, and it's not comforting that the vet has absolutely no idea what it could be. Sigh.

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2006.08.04

Overall an excellent day off was had by me. I lazed about, playing Kingdom of Loathing and working on webstuffs... took a few small naps. Yup yup. Quality day. It did start off with getting a tetanus shot that's made my arm ache all day, and I did miss a WIM, but we'll let those bits slide.

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2006.08.03

Mental note: dinners composed of andouille sausage, waffles with syrup, and Shiner Bock to be added to normal menu rotation.

It occured to me while driving home tonight that one of the reasons I feel like the commute north is longer than the commute to Seattle, despite their almost identical times given no traffic, is because of the featureless concrete/trees halfpipe of 405. Without distinguishing features (like a lake) to break up the drive, it psychologically drags. A related psychological trick is the one of driving around a traffic jam on surface streets. You don't necessarily get to where you're going quicker, but you feel as if you have.

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2006.08.02

Silly, silly cats. Micah is tonight's unlucky winner of Get Stuck In Someone's Garage! A mere two nights after Aggie got stuck in garage 117, he's stuck in 115. I fully expect that on Friday night Jasper will get trapped inside number 113. I'm relieved that that's all that happened to Micah, though. Given that my cats are indoor/outdoor there's far worse reasons for the one who's usually religiously insistent on being asleep on my bed by 11pm to have been suspiciously absent.

Maybe this will finally teach him that other people's garages (and cars... and houses...) aren't the best places for him to wander into.

I really doubt it, but a cat mom can hope.

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2006.08.01

I worked at home both last Friday and this Monday. I need to get back to doing that once a week like I was a few months back. It's just so much simulatenously less frustrating and more productive.

Two great things today. Numero 1) I'm positively ecstatic with news that many people have heard, but I will wait to put it to the internets until complete finalization. And 2) for the first time in months, I was included in a smile during the telling of a funny story at lunch. It may have been a simple slip, not in fact a sign of returning warmth, but regardless, it made my day.

Heh, I just noticed that I'm not one but two months behind on the rollover. I've been all over the /tht/ lately, obviously.

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